Pellean

I root for the empire in case you didn't notice .

Oh, I do too. I just think that the Tarkin Doctrine depends on the threatened planets only thinking in the short term.

Awesome! Had the Death Star not been destroyed at Yavin, that means the Rebellion would've been crushed within three months.

I don't know about that- Mon Mothma, Commander Ackbar, Crix Madine, and several other major Alliance leaders were not at the Yavin base, so the Rebellion would not be in total disarray. Also, if Yavin was destroyed and the Death Star survived, a few elements of the post-Yavin war would have gone differently. Darth Vader would not have been given a massive fleet to crush the Rebellion, as the victory would have made the Imperial Command more complacent rather than vengeful and motivated. Also, if the Empire started using the superlaser in earnest, the entire galaxy would have rebelled; just the destruction of Alderaan, which had been effectively buried in propoganda, had nevertheless caused a rash of Imperial desertions- imagine what would have happened if the total destruction of worlds became doctrine! All ethical Imperial officers would be placed in serious dilemmas and every planet concerned with its own survival would basically be forced to declare war on the Empire as a preemptive defense against the Death Star.
Forgive me if I'm waxing lyrical- I've just read two World War Two theorists' books and am feeling a little anylitical right now. Still, it's fun to speculate.

Vanilla is modder-speak for an unmodified version of the game. When we say Vanilla FoC, we mean the commercial version of Forces of Corruption- just reinstall Empire at war and patch it.

I'm not suggesting putting together a carrier variant for every possible combination of fighter upgrades. I was thinking more along the lines of having a single fighter unit for each line and having the technologies just apply modifiers to stats and enable weapons hardpoints that would be dormant on the original model, but present. This seems both more efficient than having individual units for each upgrade and would fix the complement-technology discontinuity. Again, I'm not sure how the technology code works in this game, but the conditional hardpoint function works in at least one other game that I've worked on. My suggestion was meant only as an exploratory comment to see if it could, in fact, be done.

Actually, I've been thinking about switching the station complements to infinite respawns as well.

Second that. Space structures always seem surprisingly devoid of fighter defense - especially as structres spawn base units without upgrades - meaning they are always vape-bait.

(...)

I don't second that. I like the idea of finite resources: ships, fighters, troops and a war of attrition. If garrisons have infinite pools, then one need to bring overwhelming power to subdue them. Where is the place for skill or tactic?

@PR It doesn't seem as right to me for space as it does for land, as you can already have a fleet of unlimited size defending the world as opposed to the max of ten units on land. Still, I suppose space reinforcements could be considered part of the planet's militia as opposed to the Imp/NR Navy, with the space stations serving as rallying points.
@Ghostrider This is an idea I've been toying with ever since the carrier issue was debated prior to 1.1: Is it possible/canonically acceptable to increase the cost of fighter and transport upgrades and have them be retroactive? This would address the carrier upgrade vs. fighter upgrade issue by making complements depend on fighter technology, the relative uselessness of starbase complements, and (assuming the same code can be used for land) the bombing run equity issue. I know that vintage ships are part of the flavor of the game, and while I enjoy the diversity of capital ships as new technology is developed, I have found that having 3-7 stacks of the same fighter annoying and less interesting. Since fighter/bomber/transport upgrades represent refits more than actual redesign anyway, this policy makes sense to me. I'm not even sure if this is possible, but it's an idea to consider.
@Hanti I see your point, but it may actually make space battles more interesting by providing tactical nuance: e.g. you must take out specific enemy targets as opposed to a pure war of attrition. You would still have the fleet battles, and it will be (I assume) only station fighter complements that will be "unlimited." This way would nudge the odds slightly more in the defender's favor, but not overly so. As of now, an attacking force will presumably have enough firepower that its commander thinks his odds of winning are better than even, thereby unbalancing the roles a bit.